About the author
Bernard Smith lives near Eastbourne on the south coast of England. He and his wife teach English as a Foreign
Language. He has written many books, mainly for exams, but also a number of Readers.
Summary
Rafael is a poor fisherman, who, for some reason in the past, has gone mad. All he can say is, ‘She gave me the golden fish,’ or ‘She gave me the ring. I still have it. She gave the ring back to me.’ Did he go mad for love of a girl, or because he saw or committed some terrible deed?
Chapters 1–4: In Chapter 1, the narrator, who is a doctor when the story starts, still remembers meeting Crazy
Rafael when, as a twelve-year-old boy, he was visiting his
Uncle Miguel. Rafael was living in an abandoned …ver más…

Yet it is difficult to understand how things turned out the way they did. In Chapter 11, the doctor starts to believe that something really frightening happened to Rafael and that repressing this made him mad. The doctor wants
Bernard SmithThe Ring c Pearson Education Limited 2008 The Ring - Teacher’s notes 2 of 3
Teacher’s notes LEVEL 3
PENGUIN READERS
Teacher Support Programme to help him remember so that he can come back to his senses. Rosa, Rafael’s aunt, begs the doctor not to do this, since she believes her late sister’s argument that her son committed a terrible crime. In Chapter 12, Rosa retells
Clara’s story about Rafael. Clara narrates the events that took place the night she saw her son standing by his boat, soaked with blood, and she thought he had killed the soldier. She told him to wash himself and dress up to go to the café and be seen by everybody so that nobody could suspect him.
Chapters 13–15: In Chapter 13, the doctor sketches his ideas about what actually happened the night Rafael went mad in the form of questions and answers. He receives a letter from Rosa telling him that Rafael is very ill. Rafael is committed to hospital with serious tuberculosis and, on the sixth day, he confesses everything he has done to the doctor and dies. In Chapter 14, the doctor retells all the events as they happened on the night of the soldier’s murder. He also discloses Rafael’s